Interlude - Index of

Glossary | 189
CFO (chief financial officer) The head of the finance department,
responsible for budgets, spending, figuring out how much money
the company is making, and so on.
chairman of the board The person in charge of the Board of
Directors.
CIO (chief information officer) The head of the IT department,
responsible for all information technology in a company.
COO (chief operating officer) One of the top two or three
people in a company, reporting to the CEO. The roles played by
COOs and presidents are highly variable, depending on the skills of
the top people. See also president.
CTO (chief technology officer) The person responsible for
guiding a company’s technology strategy.
customer support department The group in a company that
helps customers who have problems.
data center A big room or building designed especially to hold
computing equipment. See also enterprise data center.
database A collection of organized data, like a list of customers,
their credit card numbers, phone numbers, what they have bought,
and so on. Also, the application used to create and manage this
organized data.
direct sales A sales model where a company sells products directly
to customers. When you buy corn at the farmers’ market from the
family that grew it, that’s direct sales; when you buy corn at the
grocery store, that’s indirect sales.
EMC NetApp’s main competitor, still several times our size. The
initials came from the three founders’ names.
engineering department The group in a company that designs
and implements its products.
enterprise customer A very large customer, typically with thousands
of employees and offices around the world. Enterprise customers
have lots of money, but can be demanding and difficult to
satisfy.
enterprise data center A large data center designed to meet the
needs of enterprise customers. Serious ones have twenty-four-hour